


Swipe up, it's the code word (No matter where you say it you know that you'll be heard)

by starbreads



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Powers, F/F, Fluff, Pre-Relationship, that's it really
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-26
Updated: 2018-12-26
Packaged: 2019-09-27 15:46:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,743
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17164769
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starbreads/pseuds/starbreads
Summary: Left, left, left, a hesitant right, like an awkward and boring game of duck duck goose, and Lena is starting to feel an anxious frustration building up on the tips of her fingers. Probably a combination of coffee, the flight delay, general holiday blues.She twitches, her thumb sliding upwards on her screen, on the face of a pretty blonde woman with a donut in her hand and an exuberant grin on her face, and the screen does something she hadn’t seen before.It goes blue, the woman’s smiling face disappearing up, and a blue star pops on the screen, her phone vibrating as she gets a message that she just Super Liked someone. Lena feels her face heat up slightly, for no other reason than that now the other person will see it, see that Lena super liked her, maybe message her about it, and it’ll be a big awkward mess as Lena tries to explain to her that it was an accident.By Lena’s luck, it doesn’t happen quite like that.orA Very Tinder Christmas.





	Swipe up, it's the code word (No matter where you say it you know that you'll be heard)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [BigMammaLlama5](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BigMammaLlama5/gifts).



> based on [this](http://bigmammallama5.tumblr.com/post/181361763108/jemsauce-arandomthot-this-had-the-potential) and [this](http://bigmammallama5.tumblr.com/post/181364637068/please-tell-me-youre-gonna-write-the-tinder).  
> Thanks for letting me take a crack at it BigMammallama
> 
> Hope everyone had a good break. Enjoy!

Lena Luthor hated flying. Helicopters, airplanes, and even though technically it’s not flying, ski lifts too.Okay, maybe she’s afraid of heights, and that sorta doesn’t help either, but airplanes suck. But now she’s at an airport, waiting to board her flight, vaguely remembering how she had to practically drag herself there, bemoaning her sorrows the entire time, lamenting on how all of her life choices had led her to this exact moment when she had to board what was essentially a tin can hurtling through earth's atmosphere. 

Which is why, now, she’s trying to remember every other number in pi, up to the 100th one just to keep her mind busy. It doesn’t really work. The line she’s in is crowded and people are pushing around her, chomping at the bits to get on a plane that hasn’t even docked yet. She’s bodily moved forward when the stewardess approaches the microphone and turns it on, the speakers giving out a high pitched sound that makes everyone wince.

“Attention, Flight 1165 to Midvale has been delayed. Again, Flight 1165 to Midvale has been delayed. We apologize for inconvenience, thank you.” The woman has a bored look on her face, impassive as she sets the phone down and walks away calmly as if she didn’t say the very thing Lena had been dreading. 

Delayed. Her one flight, her one chance to go meet an important and impatient stockholder that had such a narrow timeframe in which she could see him, gone. Maybe. She’s holding on the thought that it won’t be delayed too long, an hour she could do, maybe even two and she could apologize profusely when she sees him, really milk the dramatics of it as much as she normally wouldn’t, but this is important. 

He’s Korean, living clear across the world, and the time difference means that she hardly ever gets a chance to meet him. She sees him maybe twice a year, at the annual LuthorCorp gala and the mandatory end of the year meeting with all of her stockholders and board members. This is imperative though, she absolutely needs to see this man. 

He’s the last person left that she has yet to talk to about the future of LuthorCorp, of L-Corp, as she’s now calling it, and the chances of that now are slim to none. But she needs to, she needs to either get his full support of buy his share of the stock, as his is the last remainder that stands in the way of her vision for her company to either fail or prosper. In Lena’s book this is about as life or death as it gets, and being raised by the Luthors means that Lena is not taking no for an answer, whatever decision he makes. 

She’s sat back down at the Starbucks in the airport, the one closest to her plane’s gate and in view of the large screen that has all the flights in that hall on display. She keeps glancing at the screen as if somehow that will prompt the plane to get here faster, but the words in bright red that say ‘delayed’ remain unchanging and Lena feels her stomach drop. She just wants to get on the plane and that thought makes her shake her head and sip at the now lukewarm cup of coffee that she holds between her hands if just for something to do other than think about how fucking late she’s gonna be.

It’s definitely out of character for her to want to get on a plane, but when the alternative is to stay another five minutes in the crowded airport, she’d rather take her chances strapped into her seat. She had never been in a proper airport before, having had the luxury of private planes and loading stations that were usually pretty empty save the airplane crew and the Luthor’s, or more recently just Jess and herself. The shock of the airport and it’s thick, loud crowds is enough to warrant an uncharacteristic need to be on the plane. At least there everything is a little more orderly, or at least she’s hoping so. 

She’s also never been on a commercial flight before. Christmas weekend coupled with an emergency meeting from a stockholder made for a rather unprepared and frantic Lena Luthor. She had dismissed her staff for the week and a half of the ‘Christmas break’ that she gave every year, even the crew of her private jet, and her driver. It was out of necessity that she called Jess to help her, relying on her secretary to help her book the quickest flight to Midvale which landed her here and now. 

Lena’s on her second cup of coffee now, the fight drained out of her as she looks halfheartedly at the flight screen again, hoping that the delayed time frame had changed in the last few minutes from when she last looked at it. 

Flight 1165 Midvale: 3hr Delay.

Nope, still the same. She deflates a little more, with half a mind of just calling a taxi and going back home, but she’s come this far, sat in this chair for far longer than she has ever even spent at a Starbucks in her life, people watching out of the corner of her eyes when starting at the screen starts to make her head hurt. And she’s still hoping that even though she’ll get to Midvale late, she’ll somehow, miraculously, catch Mr Yi before he’s whisked away to Korea again. 

It’s nearing the last hour of the delay in which Lena finds herself beyond bored now, tired of coffee and tired of looking at the flight screen, resigned to the fact that the flight is coming when it’s coming so she might as well make the most of it now. She pulls out her phone, looking at her thread with Sam, her CFO and one of her best friends, wishing her Merry Christmas and reminding her to put herself out there. 

Sam had invited Lena over to spend the holidays with, but Lena had politely declined, even despite Sam’s stubborn insistence and then her long lecture about how Lena needs to stop burying herself in her work and take some time off. Lena was a strong woman but Sam was a mom and Lena felt like a thoroughly scolded child, promising Sam that she would take the holiday off, if only to get Sam off her back about it. There was just something about Sam, probably a stubbornness that paralleled Lena’s own, that made Lena take a little more breaks here and there, sometimes even eating lunch, going on a coffee date with a Tinder match that only lead to awkwardness. 

And, oh god, Tinder was an entire can of worms that Lena had no interest in opening but that she nonetheless found herself thinking about as she absently scrolled through the text thread to find a picture of a smiling Ruby and Sam with their faces pressed together, both donning silly Christmas sweaters and even sillier matching grins. Just a few messages above that is Sam bothering her about her recent Tinder date that ended in an embarrassing encounter with one of her employees.

She exits out of the conversation, fingers wandering over her screen, switching between all her app pages and, since she has nothing else to do, she succumbs to the boredom slugging through her veins and opens Tinder. 

Lena can count on one hand the number of times she’s been on Tinder (exactly five times), so she vaguely knows her way around the app, since Sam was the one that had initially wrestled the phone form Lena’s hands and made her profile stating ‘you can’t be so stoic, Lena. Tinder has it’s special format, and trust me no one is gonna swipe right on you if all you talk about is boring science stuff’.

She had scoffed at her friend but let her go wild, watching in concern as Sam’s face twisted in glee, but alas what was done was done, and Lena had gone on three dates already. Three disastrous dates, but three nonetheless, and Sam had finally agreed that if her next date was as terrible as the others than she’d forgive Lena for deleting the app. 

So she sits, and waits, and swipes mindlessly, only sometimes swiping right after reading a woman’s bio that catches her eye. There’s far and few in between, most of them looking only for sex, or a threesome, neither of which Lena is at all interested in. She just wants to make a genuine connection with someone, not just be another notch on the bed frame.

Left, left, left, a hesitant right, like an awkward and boring game of duck duck goose, and Lena is starting to feel an anxious frustration building up on the tips of her fingers. Probably a combination of coffee, the flight delay, general holiday blues.

She twitches, her thumb sliding upwards on her screen, on the face of a pretty blonde woman with a donut in her hand and an exuberant grin on her face, and the screen does something she hadn’t seen before.

It goes blue, the woman’s smiling face disappearing up, and a blue star pops on the screen, her phone vibrating as she gets a message that she just Super Liked someone. Lena feels her face heat up slightly, for no other reason than that now the other person will see it, see that Lena super liked her, maybe message her about it, and it’ll be a big awkward mess as Lena tries to explain to her that it was an accident. 

By Lena’s luck, it doesn’t happen quite like that. 

Behind her, a phone trills with a sound she had heard a few times before, on tinder to be exact, the sound of someone being super liked, and Lena laughs nervously to herself. What are the odds of that huh? She shakes her head and has a little chuckle to herself, and glances back just to look, because why not right?

Her chances are slim, in fact, as slim as her chance of seeing Mr. Yi, and yet when she turns, she comes face to face with the grinning blonde from tinder, except this time the donut has already been devoured, traces of sugar dusting around her incredibly soft looking lips, eyes a blue more brilliant than she’s ever seen. The picture didn’t do her justice.

“Well, that’s certainly one way to get a girls attention.” She says. 

Lena’s first thought is that she wishes the ground would swallow her whole right about now. Her second is that she’s never going to hear the end of it from Sam. Her third is that the woman said something and Lena’s just been staring at her like an idiot for the past minute. 

“Oh!” That’s all she can think to say. Lena Luthor, CEO of LuthorCorp, one of the smartest people on the planet is dumbstruck and left wordless beyond belief. 

“Sorry, how rude.” The woman says, extending her hand across the aisle and Lena’s running on autopilot as she takes her hand and gives it a weak shake. “I’m Kara. Kara Danvers, but I’m guessing you know that already.”

“Actually, um, “ Lema swallows and feels herself flush, her normally hard demeanor buried under a thick layer of embarrassment, “ this is probably gonna sound like the worst excuse ever, but would you believe me if I said that it was an accident?”

She’s hoping that Kara laughs and drops it, turns around, and forgets this interaction ever happened. If only. 

Kara does laugh actually, the sound light and carefree, and she just smiles at Lena like she knew all along. 

“Well, in the words of Bob Ross himself, there are no mistakes, just happy little accidents, but if you want I can totally just pretend that didn’t happen, yeah?” Kara says, giving Lena an out, just the out she was looking for, but for some reason Lena doesn’t take it. 

Instead, she makes an even bigger fool of herself, giving Kara a confused look and not being able to help herself as she asks “Who’s Bob Ross?”

Kara gasps loudly, and it’s dramatic enough that it draws the attention of several other patrons around them. She either doesn’t notice or care as she continues in the same tone of voice and volume “You don’t know who Bob Ross is?” Kara sounds almost offended, like if Lena had forgotten her birthday, or told her she didn’t like puppies. 

“He’s just like, the coolest artist ever! Best guy, sweetest dude, he’s like the artsy Mister Rogers.”

Lena just stares blankly at Kara, who’s now moved out of her seat and next to Lena’s own, sometime between being offended and offering her explanation that wasn’t much of an explanation at all. 

“Please tell me you at least know Mister Rogers.” Kara says, a whine creeping into her voice. 

Lena shakes her head, and Kara gasps again, clamping her one hand over her mouth and the other on her chest. 

“You’ve never seen Mister Rogers?” Kara’s voice lowers to a harsh whisper, probably noticing that they’ve gotten a bit of attention from her initial outburst. Lena’s grateful for that, at least no one will notice her slowly dying on the inside now.

“Nope” Lena shakes her head, still extremely confused, bewildered, completely out of her element. 

“What kind of childhood did you even have that you’ve never seen two of the most iconic television personas?” the look in Kara’s blue eyes is so genuinely affectionate and concerned, Lena feels the sudden need to cry. She doesn’t.

“Not a very good one it seems.” A severe understatement by anyone’s standards, but some part of her isn’t ready to scare off this stranger yet, especially not by spilling her tragic childhood growing up with the Luthors. “I didn’t watch a lot of tv to be honest.”

“What?” Kara’s voice rises a little, but she’s quick to bring it back down. “Gosh, okay. Please tell me you did something fun, and not kept locked up in a tower or something,”

“A tower would’ve been far more pleasant I assume.” Lena mutters darkly, only realizing a second too late that she actually said that out loud.

Kara’s eyes darken, looking sad and angry and full of so much worry, worry for a person that she literally just met, and Lena wants to say something that’ll make Kara’s shine again. She sort of hates that look in Kara’s eyes. 

Suddenly her arms are full of her, Kara’s body warm and solid against Lena’s own, and Lena freezes, both at the unexpected hug and the unbidden thought that bubbles up in the forefront of her mind. Kara hugs so strong, yet gentle, and Lena hadn’t realized how much she had been craving for human touch up until this moment. She sort of doesn’t want it to end, and realizes that she’s been frozen. She barely gets her arms around Kara, albeit a little awkwardly, but Kara’s already pulling back, eyes wide.

“Oh shoot! I’m so sorry Lena!” Kara exclaims, “I just hugged you without asking, and you don’t even know me! Alex says I need to be careful with that, some people don’t like being touched. And I’m all about consent, really I am, my emotions just got the better of me for a sec.I really need to-”

“Kara!” Lena cuts her off midramble, even though part of her thinks it’s kind of cute, the animated way Kara talks, using her whole body. “It’s okay, I swear. Don’t worry about it. I’m the one who should be apologizing.”

“For what?” Kara asks, head tilting slight to the side. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”

How does Lena even begin to explain why she’s sorry? Sorry for super liking you on accident? Sorry for having a shitty childhood? Mostly she’s sorry she’s taking up Kara’s time, Kara probably has better things to do than indulge Lena’s silly little mistake.

“Look, it’s okay.” Kara gives her a wide smile, her plush lips pulling back to expose perfect teeth. “How bout we’re both sorry, and I promise next time I hug you, I’ll ask first. Deal?”

Lena sucks her bottom lip between teeth. “Next time?” She’d never been that bold before, and she feels heat creep up her neck.

“Definitely.” Kara grabs her phone from where it’s sitting on the table in front of her, her fingers moving across the screen and Lena’s intrigued but she’s too polite to look. Kara does a movement with her fingers and then looks up at her, a little impish smile on her face. Lena’s phone vibrates in front of her and she looks from the phone to Kara. 

Kara just gives her an encouraging nod so Lena unlocks it, Tinder still open on her screen. She has one new message, so she swipes, sneaking another glance at Kara who’s just looking at her with that little smile on her face. 

Kara D: bobross.gif

It’s a gif of a man that Lena assumes is Bob Ross, a gentle look about him, a paintbrush in one hand and a canvas smeared in blue behind him. Below his face there’s a caption. ‘There’s no such things as mistakes, just happy little accidents.’

Lena feels herself blush again, and she looks up at Kara from underneath her eyelashes. A laugh tickling it’s way up her throat. Kara laughs with her, pulling her bottom lip between her teeth, suddenly shy, and Lena’s eyes are drawn to the movement.  
“So, I know we’ve kind of done this thing a little backwards, but maybe I can get your number?” Kara asks, a hopeful tilt to her voice. 

Lena just nods a little helplessly and holds her phone out. Kara is quick to give Lena hers too, and then Lena has her phone back in her hands, a new contact on the screen. It says ‘Kara’ followed by a series of emojis that Lena can’t make sense of. 

The speaker crackles to life overhead, and both Lena and Kara are pulled out of their little bubble as a voice fills up the space.

“Flight 1165 to Midvale is now boarding. Again, Flight 1165 to Midvale is now boarding.” With a click, the message ends, and Lena breaths out a sigh of relief, but then she looks over a little reluctantly to where Kara is seated beside her.

“So, that’s my flight.” Lena says.

“What? No way.” Kara perks up from the slump she was in after hearing the announcement. Not that she didn’t want to board her flight, but she also wanted to stay with Lena for just a little bit longer. “It’s my flight too!”

“What!” It’s less a question and more of an exclamation of surprise from Lena, and the two of them burst into giggles. “Who would’ve known.”

Kara smiles cheekily at her. “I’m thinking Christmas miracle.”

Lena’s so ready to refute that, an argument on the tip of her tongue, but she swallows it back at the look on Kara’s face. It’s like a book, so open and expressive. A pretty book. She mentally shakes herself out of it, and they move together to gather up their stuff.

“By all means then, lead the way Miss Danvers.” Lena says, sweeping her hand out in a grand gesture, feeling a little silly at the move but deciding the laugh she gets out of Kara from it is worth it.

They walk shoulder to shoulder, pushed even closer together from the impressive crowd that’s gathered in front of the gate.

“What’s your seat number?” Kara asks once they’re in line to board, pulling her ticket and passport from somewhere in her purse.

Lena grabs her own and hands it over to Kara, looking over Kara’s shoulder as the other woman compares the two. 

“You’re freaking kidding me.” the almost expletive from Kara makes Lena burst into laughter.  
“What is it?” Lena asks, not really seeing anything on the tickets that Kara holds as particularly interesting.

Kara smirks at Lena as she hands her back the ticket, “Oh, nothing. You’ll see in a bit.”

Lena just shrugs and takes the ticket, looking it over a few times but nothing really pops out at her. 

It’s only a matter of minutes when they finally get to board the plane, and Lena’s eyebrows raise at the inside. The seats are so close together, the people already sitting down in the rows looking like sardines in a can, and she feels a prickle of anxiety. She decides the best course of action is to find her seat as fast as possible and don her pair of headphones so that no one feels the need to talk to her. 

She already lost Kara somewhere in the mad dash to get on board, and she feels a pang of disappointment in her chest. It would’ve been nice to see a friendly face at least.

Her seat is thankfully a window seat, but the top compartment stumps her a bit. She’s wearing sensible flats, and she’s just this side of short, so she only manages to get her bag in but she’s not able to close the door, even when she stands on her tiptoes.

“Here, I got it.” says a voice behind her, and Lena brightens at the new familiarity of it.

“Kara!” Lena says, whirling to look at her friend. “What’re you doing here?”

“I’m seat 8B” Kara grins, deftly stowing her own carry on bag and closing the hatch. 

Lena lets out a carefree laugh. She’s not even mad about the delayed flight anymore. Sure, she’ll probably have to go to Korea herself now just to see Mr. Yi, and she’ll more than likely be stuck in a hotel for the next week until her return flight to National City. But at least she met Kara, and she got her phone number. Maybe she can even take her out on a date. Take that Sam.

“What are the odds?” Lena says, settling into her seat besides her Kara, grateful that Kara doesn’t say anything when the airplane takes off and Lena maybe grabs her hand a little too tight, and especially a little pleased with herself when Kara flips her hand to intertwine her fingers with Lena for the remainder of their flight. What are the odds indeed.

**Author's Note:**

> come yell at me on [tumblr](http://petalien.tumblr.com/) and [twitter.](https://twitter.com/zrhueiaos)
> 
> the title comes from [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MZjAantupsA)


End file.
